Jurgen Klopp admits his success at Liverpool is a complete one-off and is convinced the club is in safe hands due to their “absolutely insane” next generation.
Virgil van Dijk’s dramatic 118th-minute winner earned an injury-ravaged side a 1-0 victory over Chelsea in the Carabao Cup final at Wembley on Sunday.
It was an eighth trophy as Reds manager for Klopp, who announced last month he will depart at the end of the season after approaching nine months in charge.
And the manager believes the Anfield support – more than 32,000 travelled south – remain the lifeblood of the club.
“I couldn’t care less about my legacy,” said Klopp. “I’m not here to create one. As a manager of a football club I am there to do the job. Nothing we’ve done in the last eight or nine years is replaceable, we couldn’t have done the same at another club.
“It was exactly made for this combination. It is fantastic. We learned so much in that time, the people learned so much.
“That’s the one thing – it’s not a problem if a manager leaves, if these people would leave, our supporters, that would be a problem. As long as they are the way they are, Liverpool Football Club will be fine and that’s the most important thing.”
The absence of 11 senior players, which became 12 when Ryan Gravenberch was forced off with an ankle complaint early on, meant Liverpool had to turn to their Academy players with teenagers Bobby Clark, James McConnell and Jayden Danns along with 21-year-old Jarell Quansah all coming off the bench.
And Klopp said: “Age is not at all in our thought process in that moment. We knew who we would take, we knew we had to build a squad. Yesterday in training it was clear these are the boys we could take.
“We needed fresh legs. That was clear. You can always think about who do you take off, and it’s sometimes the wrong one. But it’s clear we had to make changes.
“The development of Bobby Clark. Oops. That’s really crazy, I have to say. The development of James McConnell is absolutely insane. Jayden Danns only recently joined us in first-team training and I loved him from first second, really special. He comes on today and could have scored two goals in a Carabao Cup final. It’s absolutely insane.
“The others kids were there who we could have brought on in (Lewis) Koumas and Trey (Nyoni), some we left at home like Kaide (Gordon). The way the experienced group involves them is pretty special. It was wonderful.”
Klopp also joked at spotting Dominik Szoboszlai and Darwin Nunez, who were among the injured players, joining in the post-match festivities.
“Some weren’t allowed to come here from our squad but so many were involved in the celebrations,” he said. “Darwin and Dom are not fit at the moment and that’s why they didn’t play, but the celebration looked at 100%, let me put it like this. So we will have to talk about that with the medical department!
“But it is for this group and for the club a super special night.”
A 40-page souvenir special commemorating Liverpool FC’s Carabao Cup win will be available to buy in shops from Thursday or you can pre-order it HERE now from our online shop.